Slashdot videos: Now with more Slashdot!

View

Discuss

Share

We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

But zoom out and give an honest recounting of the whole slave trade, from origin through Abolition, and on up to today.
Racism, then as now, lives in the eyes of its beholders, all of them.
Any useful discussion needs to focus on facts and minimize all of the contemporary canards that have more to do with harnessing political power than a sincere quest for understanding.
And it's the insincerity of the Racism Industrial Complex that turns my stomach the most, of the contemporary issues.

(a) I wasn't born yet.
(b) My ancestors that where in-country fought for the North.
(c) Learning from history on a rational level is not the same thing as letting some jackwagon turn it into an emotional prison. Evil occurs, yes: mature humans forgive each other, to be liberated of the past, while keeping a weather eye on the future, against repeats.

To summarize: the historical existence of such signage does not impact me emotionally, except to trigger blowback against those trying to play it for propagna

It might be "historical" for you, but it's part of my living memory. And that of a lot of other folks, so I suggest you chuck the solipsism and "If I can't see it right now, it must not be real" crap straight away.

FWIW, I'm a Southerner, but my family were not slave-owners (with one exception) and various members fought on either side in the War Between The States.

At least one of my ancestors is known to have fought on *both* sides.

Due to the single exception I mentioned above, I also have amongst my ancest

It might be "historical" for you, but it's part of my living memory. And that of a lot of other folks, so I suggest you chuck the solipsism and "If I can't see it right now, it must not be real" crap straight away.

How are we rating any one individual's memories above any others, in any direction, on any point?

The jury did not seem to think this the limit of the set of relevant facts, for a glance at the verdict.
Again, I'm not trying to accuse Zimmerman of Nobel-level brilliance here.
But your oversimplification is so gross as to be effectively context-free. Great work!

The overarching fact that the federal government, starting with the POTUS, decided to involve itself in a matter of local law totally queered the legal proceeding from the outset.
This administration is a river of falsehoods, and its attempt to spin the George Zimmerman case into a general race war is among the larger pieces of crap floating in that river.
Zimmerman is Sgt. James Crowley [huffingtonpost.com], Trayvon a slightly more dead variation on Prof. Gates, and anybody who doesn't reject the straightforward propaganda cam

It's possible that slavery is a national sin that just isn't ever going to wash out. When slavery was institutionalized in our first Constitution, it became embedded in the nation's DNA. I'm not sure it can be changed. It might get better at times and worse at times, but it's not going away.

Not all sins are forgivable here on Earth, right? Once you've declared that a certain group of people are not fully human, you can't just say later, "Oh, we didn't really mean it" and have it be forgotten. It's who

What do the "historical/economic" factors have to do with sin? What do they have to do with one group of people making a legal assumption that another group is less than human and their worth is only what they determine?

I'm speaking purely from a standpoint of sin in the Christian sense, but in this case committed by a nation at the moment of its birth.

They point out that the wildly uneven arguments you proffer are not a calm, rational basis for examining what's occurred and providing equality of opportunity for all in the future;
rather, you're peddling a garbled stream of emotional effluent that 'unexpectedly' worsens all of the problems you cite.
I yawn at your approach.

Cornel is a real good human being. The other two are media clowns, promoted in the mainstream to remove black voices as a part of serious discourse. They'll never risk another Dr. King.

Now, To be an "Industrial Complex", one must already possess an elite imbalance of wealth, influence and actual power. The "Industrial Complex" tag implies a large scale, anti-republicanism that seeks cartel/conspiratorial influence over public policy, promoting the participants narrow self-interest and financial rewards -

That's a good enough working definition of the Racism Industrial Complex (RIC). While I don't think a true meritocracy is existentially attainable, I do think (based upon my military experience working across the spectrum) that American society is about as optimal as it's going to get, and that the problems we do encounter are exacerbated by the RIC [youtube.com], in the name of maintaining its power, and keeping certain constituencies in line.

Sweet, sweet "privilege" accusation. You'd have to believe in some sort of absolute truth to produce an objective measurement of that, would you not?
I sport a +5 Ring of Pack-Your-Guilt-Where-It-Will-Do-You-The-Most-Good, buddy.
You're welcome to come hang out at church, get to know me, absorb the Christian context, and help me understand where I'm falling short of Christ. Now that would be some useful feedback.
Cheap poo-flinging on/. does not an argument make.

Who's arguing? I'm just making an observation of fact. And it appears that objectivity is not your friend. I really don't expect you to see the reality, so mired you are in cultural indoctrination. Everything on the other side of the fence simply does not exist. I will state it outright. Saying that we are in a post racist society is one of the dumber things you have posted here. You cannot possibly have any idea what it's like to walk in another man's shoe

- Never worrying about a DWB- Not being followed in every retail establishment you ever enter.- Not looking up, almost every day, to a stranger clearing their throat and thinking, "Oh, no. Here it comes again."- Not being patronised and told "We'll be getting in touch" - with the tact and manner that is used to dismiss school children.- Never dealing with the understanding that half the people you see, day in and day out, every day of your life, have the word "nigger" float across their minds in

Given the behavior of the Administration to exacerbate every problem you cite, given the tendency of Holy progress to exacerbate every problem you cite, I systematically, thoroughly refuse to subscribe to even ONE IOTA of guilt over the items you cite.
You want to see how I roll? Come to my church [kingstownebaptist.org], which has a sizeable chunk of blacks, mulattos, Koreans, and, yes, people of European extraction.
Do the problems you cite exist? I don't doubt it. Does everybody need to grow up? Sure.
I have served God and coun